Oh NOBODY'S going to be horny after this

Amazing tags

my ankle is so fuckin horny tho

A victorian

saving this for the next time someone innocently asks me what tumblr is

The book I plugged before, Walkable City, said that a successful public transportation system should run at least every ten minutes. If people have to wait more than ten minutes for whatever they’re waiting for (bus, subway, etc.), then they’re more likely to decide to just drive to their destination. This is obviously more true for places with an entrenched driving culture, but anyway, the book said that almost no municipality wanting to start up a public transportation system wanted to pay to have it run every ten minutes, because that would mean having more buses/trains and hiring more drivers. So, instead, most of them decided that a 15-20 minute wait was their goal. And then, when the public transit system failed, the municipality would be like, “See?! People just won’t use public transportation! :-(” And part of the book’s argument was, well, they are indeed much less likely to use *bad* public transportation, yes.

like: my brothers name is arttu, which is one of the finnish versions of arthur. you can get really close to the english way of saying it by thinking R2 like R2D2 the star wars dude. but that is not the correct way - in finnish the stress is on the double T (which english doesn’t really have. like the way double letters work in finnish is really distinctly different from how they work in english) and finnish R’s are strong/sharp/rolled. you have stress on the first Ar turning into a distinct double T turning into a short u, which isn’t the english u, the finnish pure U doesn’t exist in english. the closest you get is like a ghostly OoOooOoH but even that has too much Y sound in it. like it’s just not a word you would ever say right in the middle of an english sentence as an english speaker. and frankly i also don’t pronounce finnish names or finnish words right when i’m speaking in english

This is exactly how I feel. There are quite a few Yiddish or Hebrew words in English and I'm just like... Fine with people pronouncing them in an anglicized manner cause that's how language works. The same with my name. I describe it as being pronounced like Kyle with a hard G - and that's not wrong, per se, for English, but in Hebrew the vowels are sharper, the L is a harder sound, so obviously if you're going to say my name in Hebrew or in English, it's going to sound a little different. Languages don't always interact with each other 1:1. I'm not going to ask everyone to pronounce Cherub with a ח/χ sound instead of a ch, because that sounds doesn't exist in English. And honestly, at the end of the day, that's fine. That's how cultural exchanges work. It's not the same as willfully misunderstanding how to pronounce someone's name, but it's also understandable if they literally do not have the ability to Do That With Their Mouth.

I once asked a friend of mine if she ever wished people would use her Chinese name, and she said not really, because non-speakers really can't hear the tones in Mandarin without a lot of ear-training and practice, and it would be a fruitless endeavour to try and teach every person she met to hear and repeat them upon meeting her.

And I personally know from experience that not everybody can easily make certain sounds their own language doesn't use. When I've explained to other people that I have a Hebrew name and a Bengali name, the latter is usually fairly easy for them to get, but the hard CH in my Hebrew name usually ends up with them pronouncing it Ra-Hell, which is... wrong. But it's not malicious or anything; they're just not used to using the muscles and making the sound that's required.

This can be true with non-names as well. For example: It's apparently extremely hard for native German speakers to say the english word 'squirrel.'

Obviously, if you're close with somebody and they really want you to learn how to say their name in certain way, you should do your best to accomodate, but some people may never get it 100% right for all the effort in the world, because they can't hear accents or tones, or they can't make their muscles work a certain way that's not standard, and I think it's important not to shame anybody for that. And I think it's also totally fair if some people prefer to have an English version of their name that doesn't require them to break out into a language lession with every random person they meet. Not everyone cares enough or has the patience and that's fine, too.

I think the constant dichotomy of Tumblr posts that say, “you MUST do this thing or you’re a terrible person” and ones that say, “just try you’re best, your effort has value, you’re not a terrible person” is fascinating.

^^^^^^^

I think that dichotomy is the end result of basically two related but different conversations/circumstances.

“Just say my name right, there’s no excuse” is a pretty reasonable response in some circumstances - like if you say your name is Sunita and get told ‘I’ll just call you Sarah :)’, or someone keeps saying ‘Joe-queen’ instead of Joaquin even after multiple corrections.

And that’s a completely different problem to someone making a good faith attempt at a name that contains sounds that don’t exist in their native language, or using an anglicized pronunciation that they were given by the person whose name it is, but because they’re both examples of fucking up someone’s name, the second situation gets subsumed into the first by people who I think are probably genuinely trying to do the right thing or be on the right side or whatever but are just parroting people without really understanding the thing they’re mad about lol.

im going to chime in as a trans man who was entirely convinced he was a cis girl for years, and who lived very fully and enthusiastically as a woman: cis women that read, write, edit, and promote m/m are our friends. they're our friends! there isn't some kind of pornographic musical chairs situation going on here where there isn't enough content for everyone so we have to shove out our enemies! we don't have to engage in austerity measures or budget cuts to make sure there's enough cocksucking to go around.

cis women are editors and archivists and reviewers and promoters and hype (wo)men, even when they're not producing some of the most beautiful love stories i've ever seen and also some of the most deliciously painted dicks. and yeah sometimes women say gross shit about gay men but boy oh boy can i report plenty of gross shit gay men have said about women! saying gross shit about other demographics is something everyone does.

but like. hi. i am legally male now, and i've written m/m stuff since i was a fourteen year old girl. i've read reams of it. and i want to be extremely clear that you shouldn't let cis girls off the hook for reading and writing m/m work just because they might actually be trans. you should let them off the hook because they're our fucking friends and we don't treat friends like that.

and also you don't have a right to put anyone on a hook in the first place.

2. “Come now my child.”

*bluey the album starts playing*

3. “Oh I am so sorry. You’ve been mildly inconvenienced. How dare I truly”

4. “It is she! Her Majesty, Queen of the Sludge, Keeper of Goo, DJ Baby P (In the House) Dropper of Beats and Clapper of Hands”

5. He is in charge of bathtime and he lifted the ghoul tonight while singing “come with me and you’ll be in a world of baby sanitation” and I laughed so hard I snorted pasta

6. Okay this is more one that he said to me about the toddler but he was home with her while I was at work and I just got this text

7.

“Happy Independence Day Sweetie! Nationalism is a cancer!”

8. This is another one he said to me about her but still it made me laugh so hard I nearly choked

It’s an unpopular opinion but it is absolutely and completely true. I’ve never seen someone who creates for engagement happy with the engagement they get. I posit they can’t ever be happy that way because it will NEVER be enough